


The Summer of Our Discontent

by Suaine



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-05
Updated: 2012-10-05
Packaged: 2017-11-15 17:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suaine/pseuds/Suaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A moment of transition for Lydia, Allison and Derek. Maybe it's the beginning of something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Summer of Our Discontent

**Author's Note:**

> This would have been my Teen Wolf fanfic contest entry, if only I was an American. I wrote it anyway because I wanted to see what I could do with the concept and the guidelines. The title is a not-that-clever twist of a Shakespeare quote, until you realize that Jeff Davis is the moon and makes them glorious... then it's just silly ;)

Lydia Martin isn't above being moved by the beauty around her. The sky is deep blue, thanks Rayleigh, and the ocean no less stunning for being a reflection, both a perfect contrast to bleached-bone sand and the fresh green of palm trees and perfectly sculpted underbrush. The beach is an illusion for tourists, made into a dream to distract from the poverty of the people who work in the hotels, the destruction tourists leave behind when they go home. But the beauty is there, under the surface. The smell of the sea, metallic but not like blood at all, and the warm wind whispering over her skin – these are the things that make her sit here, occasionally looking across the vast and empty water as she turns a page.  
  
Jackson is frolicking much like a dog, tugging local boys into competitive play, swimming faster and farther than he should. He likes to get lost in the waves and Lydia lets him. The next full moon is still weeks away and his parents have yet to make noises about cutting their vacation short. Lydia's led them across the world in search for answers; it is perhaps good fortune that the specter of commerce has reached even the outskirts of the jungles from which the kanaima originated, but there aren't any answers in the folk tales of the superstitious.  
  
She's run out of clues two countries ago. Her hand is steady on the spine of the old book she's holding, a 13th century romance of knights and great adventure and winning the affection of queens by slaying monsters, but she can't help the urge to look at her knuckles. Peter has left her with quite a bit of arcane knowledge, but he's also left her damaged. When the wind picks up, sometimes she can still hear his voice. At night she can't help but look behind her as she walks to a rave at the beach.  
  
Watching over the rim of her sunglasses as Jackson trots toward her, Lydia has to smile. Jackson is still the same obsessive jerk, but there is a new strength to him. Not the wolf stuff, that's all surface, but he looks at her now like there is a truth between them, something he can trust. He still can't say the words, but Lydia has time.  
  
She puts the book aside, knowing that he'd just drip seawater all over it as he leans in to steal a kiss. “Hey,” he says. “You have that look on your face.”  
  
Lydia rolls her eyes, but her fingers thread in his wet hair. She pulls him close, a little dominance in the act, a lot of affection. “What look is that?”  
  
“Like there is something you need to do but you don't know what it is.”  
  
Sometimes, Jackson is more observant than any of them give him credit for. She scrunches her nose and pushes him away. “Maybe I do have some unfinished business.”  
  
He doesn't know about Peter. He does, however, know about being controlled, about losing himself in the will of someone else. It's something they will always have in common. “Are we done running away? Not that I don't appreciate the vacation and I don't really care if any of them need our help-” Not true, she thinks, not anymore. The call of pack is not easy to ignore. “But.” He doesn't say anything else.  
  
Lydia looks past him at the ocean. Whatever Peter has planned is not going to be anything good and for a while just taking herself and Jackson out of the picture seemed like the right idea. But running isn't what Lydia Martin does, not ever. If she is going to beat Peter at his game, it will be because she's so much smarter than he can ever hope to be.  
  
“It's time to go home,” she says, and smiles.  
  
\----  
  
The burger place smells delicious and that alone is a sign Allison is losing her mind. Again. She's famished though, worn to the bone from training all night and giving orders to men much older than her. She still thinks of them as Gerard's men, but they're hers now, hers to command and control. And when they kill, the blood will be on her hands.  
  
Scott is sitting with Isaac in one of the booths and Allison sighs. He's kept his distance, just like she asked, but it stings to see him around town. She doesn't want to ask him to avoid her even more, but a part of her wants to turn around and get breakfast at the disreputable diner down by the reserve. She feels shame crawl hot down her spine as Isaac laughs and she remembers the feel of her knives slicing through muscle and bone.  
  
Something alerts them to her presence because they freeze and exchange a complicated glance. Allison tells herself she's not jealous of the easy camaraderie, but it's a lie. Scott had that with her, for a little while, and she misses it fiercely. She's uprooted without him and it's difficult not to get swept away by traditions and politics.  
  
Scott stands up and she can read the tension in his back. Her eyes slip to Isaac, who has turned his head to look out the window. He isn't giving them privacy, but he's polite enough to pretend.  
  
“Allison,” he says, standing a little too far away. “I was just having breakfast with Isaac, but if you want, we can go.”  
  
Taking a deep breath, Allison shakes her head. “No, I... no. I don't need you to run away with your tail between your legs every time I'm within fifty yards.”  
  
Scott swallows. She follows the movement with her eyes, remembering what the skin there feels like between her teeth. “Oh, alright, do you want to join us then? As friends, I mean.”  
  
Allison feels the muscle in her jaw twitch. “I can't do that, Scott. Not yet.” She wants nothing more than to run away, as far and as fast as she can, but she isn't about to be that weak. Not over something so silly. Scott has been so good about giving her space and now it's her turn to be the bigger person. She forces a smile and nods in direction of the counter. “I'm going to get a coffee, you go back to your pancakes.”  
  
Scott nods, turning halfway when something occurs to him. “Wait, Allison, there's something you need to know.”  
  
She holds up her hand to stop him. “Please, Scott, don't do this.”  
  
“No!” He looks almost offended at her assumption that he is going to make a pass at her. “That's not- Isaac just told me that there's a problem. A really big problem with, you know.” He makes a fang gesture with his left hand. Allison gives him a nod to continue. “There's a new pack in town. All of them are alphas, so just. Be careful.”  
  
Allison huffs. “I can take care of myself.”  
  
Scott throws her one of his puppy dog smiles and Allison's heart skips a beat. “I know. I just figured you could use the heads-up.” He turns away, not waiting for an answer.  
  
Her eyes rest on him, new information settling at the back of her mind. This is going to change everything, this is what she's been training for and soon she's going to be tested. She watches a little longer, waiting for her order, and listens to the sound of Scott's laughter.  
  
\----  
  
Their scent is everywhere, putrid like fresh corpses decomposing in an airtight space, but so ever-present that Derek can't make sense of the trail. He drives aimlessly, hoping for a stroke of good luck. Good luck, however, isn't something that happens to Derek Hale, so instead of a break in his pursuit of the alpha pack, all he finds is a sky blue jeep parked by the side of the road.  
  
He could just drive past. Stiles has made his choices.  
  
Still, the alphas are out in force and if Peter is right, they know everything there is know about Derek's ragtag excuse for a pack and they know that Stiles is at least tangentially a part of it. As he hits the brakes, Derek curses the recklessness of teenagers.  
  
Stiles isn't by the car, but Derek tracks him to a small cliff a few hundred yards into the forest. “You shouldn't be out here,” Derek says, enjoying the hike in Stiles' heart rate as he startles and flails. It's the small pleasures that make this whole thing worthwhile.  
  
“Oh my god,” Stiles gasps, slurring his words a little. He's drunk and Derek doesn't need to be a werewolf to know, the smell of cheap booze stings in his nostrils like fire accelerant. “Don't do that. Jesus f-”  
  
“These woods are dangerous,” Derek says, interrupting whatever tirade is ready to spill from Stiles' lips. He doesn't need to hear it, just needs to get the annoying idiot to relative safety. Not that there's much safety to go around.  
  
Stiles laughs, falling backward, head hitting gravel with an unpleasant crunch. Derek winces on his behalf, because Stiles is drunk enough not to care, for now. “Worried about me, old boy? Can't bear the thought of living without the awesomeness that is me. It's okay, I wouldn't want to live without me either.” Stiles frowns, like he's thinking long and hard about the possibility. Derek doesn't like seeing that expression on Stiles, he's seen it on himself enough to last for a lifetime.  
  
“If I let you be murdered by alphas, Scott might actually try to kill me and then I would have to kill him. It's easier this way.”  
  
Stiles looks around, distracted. “I, uh, I have a bat. And I was on the softball team in sixth grade so it's way less weird for me to have one. I could probably do some damage, if I had to. Maybe.” His face sets in a grimace. “Maybe not.”  
  
Derek has no idea what's expected of him in response, so he glares to cover his bases. The idea that Stiles could defend himself against an alpha with nothing but sarcasm and a bat is ludicrous, but Derek has the feeling that it's kind of the point.  
  
Stiles looks up at him, his gaze sharper than expected. Derek can't tell if he's playing drunk or playing sober, not that it really matters. “I used to be a happy drunk, before all of this.” He gestures at Derek, but he means werewolves, hunters, kanimas. Death and betrayal and lies. Stiles wants out and he's the only one who can. Derek isn't going to stop him, doesn't _want_ to stop him. Except-  
  
In a weird, emotionally stunted way, Derek kind of likes Stiles. Laura would have laughed at him.  
  
“Can werewolves get drunk?” Stiles asks as Derek drags him to his feet, slinging one of Stiles' arms over his shoulder. “Is there some kind of wolfsbane tea that'll make you all woozy and handsy and smile like an idiot?”  
  
“No,” Derek says, because it's true. He and Laura once tried to drown their sorrows, but it turns out that Derek isn't a happy drunk either.  
  
Stiles goes quiet on the way back, letting himself be dragged along. Derek knows enough about Stiles to know that this isn't good, that he's getting lost in his own head in ways that are a little too familiar to dwell on. But it isn't really Derek's place to ask where Stiles is going when he's like this; it's none of his business, and Derek has no idea why part of him wants it to be.  
  
Derek takes the jeep and leaves his own car with some regret. The twin alphas are just the kind of people who'll mess with it just to make a point. It's even odds on whether or not he'll come back to find the sleek black car set on fire or stripped to the bone.  
  
Stiles leans against the inside of the door, slumped in his seat like a corpse or a puppet with all its strings cut. It makes Derek want to hold him up. He talks, because the silence is the pressuring kind, too full of unspoken truths and the weight of the world. He tells Stiles about the alphas and what Peter has figured out about their intentions.  
  
Stiles makes a sour face, like Peter is the gum on the sole of the universe. Derek is flooded with sudden affection for the kid who turned down an alpha, possibly the only one who'd stand with him against Peter these days. “I wouldn't trust him,” Stiles says, face still pressed against the glass.  
  
Derek shrugs. “I don't.”  
  
“Yeah, you don't trust anyone, do you?”  
  
And that's still the truth, more now than ever, but it's also not exactly an easy question to answer. “You saved me from drowning,” he says, because he's never said thanks for that and with all that's happened maybe Stiles needs to hear it. Maybe Derek needs to say it, too, because Stiles may well be the only person who would actively try to save his life.  
  
“That's kind of a shitty baseline, dude.”  
  
Derek looks at Stiles and rolls his eyes. Stiles isn't wrong, but Derek doesn't have anything better to offer. Erica and Boyd are with the alphas, Isaac is with Scott, and Scott really doesn't care about him at all, one way or the other. “It's all I've got.”  
  
The silence comes back and Derek wonders where it takes Stiles, what it shows him. For Stiles, silences are never calm, they're never a relief, and Derek feels oddly protective of the human boy who really should have run the other way months ago. “I don't really have anyone to trust either,” Stiles says quietly into the space between him and the glass. “My dad and Scott love me and I'd do anything for them, but I can't really share...”  
  
Derek thinks of Laura and all the things he never said to her. “You don't want to disappoint them, or be a burden.”  
  
Stiles sighs. “Something like that.”  
  
 The Sheriff's gone when they arrive and Derek isn't surprised. Stiles would schedule his breakdown so as not to inconvenience the people he loves. “Do you need me to get you up to your room?”  
  
Grinning to himself, Stiles shakes his head lightly. “Nah, wouldn't want you to actually have to use a door like normal people.”  
  
They get out and Stiles is still unsteady on his feet, swaying to the beat of his heart. Derek could go; nothing very bad is going to happen from here to the door, but he feels like he owes Stiles the courtesy, so he takes his arm to steady him and asks for the keys to the house.  
  
“I can do this myself, you know,” Stiles assures him, but his eyes are halfway closed and he's stuck trying to retrieve the keys from his pants pocket, hopping about a bit like that's going to help. Derek grins.  
  
“Want some help with that?” He gestures at the general vicinity of Stiles' pants and after an odd moment of incomprehension, Stiles flushes, cheeks and ears giving off heat like they're on fire. He smells like, well.  
  
“Oh, uh-”  
  
“I didn't mean that.”  
  
Stiles sighs and steps out of his grasp, back against the door. “I know. Okay, I know. Jesus.” Stiles rubs his hand over his face almost violently. “Look, there are things that I don't talk about, okay. This is one of those things, so let's never talk about it again.”  
  
Derek is more than happy to oblige. Except. He knows all about secrets and hiding himself away. And this one seems so benign compared to everything else. He doesn't really know why he says the next thing that comes to mind, he only knows that Stiles looks exhausted and smells like shame. “If you need someone to-”  
  
“Oh my god,” Stiles moans. “We are not having this discussion. I'm in love with Lydia, so it doesn't even matter, alright? No one ever needs to know.”  
  
He should probably leave, instead he's looking at Stiles who's looking back at him and there's something unsaid between them. Stiles shifts, pressed against his front door, and Derek notices too late that they're standing way too close. When Stiles surges forward it's not quite a surprise. They're kissing for three seconds, if that, when Derek catches himself and pushes Stiles back against the door by the shoulder, putting some space between them.  
  
“Stiles, what-”  
  
“Testing a theory. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go upstairs, throw up my shame and pretend that I won't remember any of this in the morning.”  
  
Stiles has opened the door, key and all, and slammed it back in Derek's face before the moment begins to make sense. Derek touches his lips and blinks. This is a complication he doesn't need in his life and he's not... he's not interested, there are so many reasons why he shouldn't even think about it. But Stiles gets under his skin, somehow, and he's feeling kind of light-headed.  
  
His phone buzzes. There's a new text message.  
  
 _not terrible 4 first kiss._ Derek laughs, a first in far too long. Then there's another buzz. _keep me in loop bout wolfy bznz. maybe i'm not as done with this crap as i thought._  
  
Derek can't help but smile as he makes his way back to the woods and his car. Maybe there's some hope for this misfit pack of his.


End file.
